MOSCOW, May 10 /ITAR-TASS/. The Moldovan authorities have seized boxes with lists of signatures collected by people in the breakaway Transdniestrian Republic for unification with Russia, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Saturday, May 10.

“Moldovan security services are on our plane and seizing boxes with Transdniestrian people’s signatures for reunification with Russia,” he wrote in his Twitter account.

The documents were handed over to Rogozin on Friday, May 9, during his visit to Tiraspol, the capital of Transdniestria. His aide Dmitry Loskutov said, also on Twitter, that “Moldovan security services searched the plane by which Rogozin was supposed to fly to Moscow and took stock of the boxes with signatures for the recognition of the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic”.

Rogozin believes that there can be no better advertising for the referendum than what Chisinau did.

Prior to his visit to Tiraspol, Moldova informed Rogozin that his visit would be undesirable. Chisinau was not so much worried by his official programme as by possible unannounced events, including the intention of Transdniestrian public organisations to hand over tens of thousands of signatures to Rogozin for subsequent delivery to President Vladimir Putin.

The signatures are supposed to back up the arguments for accession to Russia, which were stated in a similar appeal to Moscow adopted earlier by the Transdniestrian parliament.

The Russian Embassy in Chisinau told ITAR-TASS that it was expecting explanations from the Moldovan authorities regarding the seizure of the boxes with signatures. “We have learnt from press reports that the boxes with the signatures of Transdniestrian people, which were handed over in Tiraspol to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, are being seized. We are waiting for official information on that score from the Moldovan authorities,” Minister-Counselor Vsevolod Filipp said.